BREED: Dalmatian

AGE: 3 Years

LIKES: Agitating the Hot Dog man that is on the corner of his most walked on street until he can steal a few hot dogs. He loves to play with the Pongo's puppies when they are around and helping them terrorise the dog catcher- he can never catch Apollo.

DISLIKES: Bowser, a large Beauceron stray, that "checks up on" the strays of London, and humans coming too close to him.

PERSONALITY: Depends on who he is with: when he is with the Pongo's puppies he acts just like a big brother. When alone and wandering the streets, hoping for food he can be an artful dodger, finding everything funny.

BEST FRIEND/S: Lucky and Roly, the puppies he sees mostly around town.

HISTORY: 

Apollo was happily born into a healthy pedigree litter with two other brothers and two sisters. They all had loving and caring parents and owners, who would never mistreat them or speak cruel words to them. Because Apollo was born into a pedigree family, his unique markings meant that he could not be shown or sold to someone who wanted to show him.

When the time came, people came to look at and buy the puppies until only Apollo was left. When he was 10 weeks old, and the only pup left with his mother, a man came to look at him, claiming that he wanted a puppy to keep him company now that his wife had tragically passed away. He was so convincing that Apollo took a liking to him and his owners let him go home with the man, seeing that Apollo enjoyed his company. 

However, when the man got him home, he dumped Apollo in a dirty old shed for a couple of days, only giving him one small meal and little water. One day, the man came back and took Apollo to a dark alleyway where there were more men and more dogs that were both older and bigger than him. He was suddenly thrown into an arena where he met a very large mongrel dog, who was snarling at him. Apollo cowered away to the edge of the arena but was beaten so that he was forced to stay in the middle and face the snarling dog. That night he was badly cut and bruised, but he learned that the man that had taken him away from his parents was obviously intending to make money out of this.

Apollo knew that in order to survive he would have to face off the dogs and if he won enough times, the man fed him a substantial amount of food to help him get stronger. After 6 months of this hard life, it was another evening in another dark alleyway, and Apollo was back in the arena, this time facing a not so intimidating Spaniel. Out of the corner of his eye, Apollo noticed a gap in the arena wall, which was poorly made out of thin steel panelling. He raced towards and sqeezed quickly through the gap, escaping into the night.

From then on he avoided humans, convinced that they were all intent on making him fight other dogs or abuse him- he could now barely remember those happy times spent with his parents and siblings. Apollo became an expert on the streets, knowing all of the best hiding places in the streets of London and taking refuge every night in an old abandoned warehouse.

He has seen the Pongo's puppies around town often, sometimes helping them to dodge the dog catchers or help Roly get a hold of some lunch. But he has never accepted their offer to go back to their farm with them, almost terrified by human contact. The only thing that seems to prove to Apollo that he isn't really a bad dog is the chain with a silver tag that hangs around his neck. He has always had it, but has never known what it is or what it stands for.....